At the Leigh-on-Sea engineering firm Borough (www.borough.co.uk), Davis Scrivener was an ever-present fixture between joining as a young van driver in 1966 and retiring recently as works director.

Current managing director David Coombes, who joined the firm just before Mr Scrivener, remembers his arrival: “David used to pick up parts we had zinc-plated when he worked for another local firm. Given our one-day turn-round, he was a regular visitor, and we warmed to his organised and pragmatic approach to problem solving.

“He has always been cool under pressure, which served him well as our works manager in the late ’60s and early ’70s, as we developed the fledgling processes of electroplating and chrome plating on plastic. As business boomed, he was responsible for keeping the machines running and the workforce happy— a role he fulfilled with his usual unflappable style.”

Mr Scrivener (pictured) says: “The engineering world I leave has changed out of all recognition from the one I joined as a lad in the ’60s. We perfected the process for plating plastic in the ’70s, and I still remember the first parts we ever produced for Jaguar: head-lamp surrounds for the XJS in 1975.

“Borough is an adaptable business, changing as dictated by the market but continuing to deliver high-quality products and services. At its peak, we were plating 70,000 mouldings every 24hr for the mobile-phone industry. The company now moulds more of the parts that it plates, while the size and complexity of the mouldings have increased.”